


interrogation

by lionsenpai



Series: at the intersection of ideals and impulse [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 18:06:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5976256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionsenpai/pseuds/lionsenpai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Neo in custody, it falls to Glynda to coax her into cooperating. Things go about as well as expected with Glynda dating her boss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	interrogation

**Author's Note:**

> i hadn't planned on creating something else so soon for this but then a stream happened and this got discussed somewhere along the way

For the thousandth time since she’d entered the room, Glynda watched chains pull taut, the metallic rattle grating after so many attempts. And for the thousandth time, she said, “You aren’t getting out of those.”

Across from her, a splash of color in a room with white walls and fluorescent lights humming overhead, sat four foot nine inches of murder, treason, and utter frustration, wrapped in aura restraints and staring at her hands as if it were the first time she’d noticed the manacles around them. 

Neopolitan looked up at Glynda as she had every time before that, contrite as a cat who’d got the cream, her lips ever quirked, eyes ever assessing, ever keen. 

Glynda scowled at her from across the table, clicking the pen held uselessly in one hand. The faint buzz of the lights were nails against the chalkboard without voices to dull them, and despite the extensive, photographic proof of her misdeed, Glynda hadn’t gotten so much as a word out of her since they’d sat down almost three hours ago. 

Touching the papers fanned out on the table between them, Glynda brought the end of the pen to one temple, drawing Neo’s gaze downward with the quick tap of nails against a high resolution photo of her dismantling Atlas security bots with a surgeon’s precision. 

“It wasn’t coincidence you were on the same vessel which held Roman Torchwick, was it?” she asked, fighting the instinctual roll of her eyes at just the thought of the man. 

Neo tilted her head, and Glynda wondered, for the thousandth time, how she’d ended up with this task. 

“You aren’t helping yourself by keeping quiet. Deals don’t get offered to people who don’t exhibit some form of cooperation - ” Glynda watched Neo tug at her shackles again. “ - and so far, you haven’t given me a thing.”

_ Except a headache _ , she thought, wincing at the rankling sound of metal and clicking her pen again. 

“Torchwick is being questioned as well,” Glynda tried. “I’m sure you know how talkative he is.”

Chains snapped tight, and Glynda inhaled sharply. 

“He’s been offered a reduced sentence for information on your goals.”

_ Clank _ . 

“It would be  _ wise _ to not be left out of such a deal.”

_ Clack. _ Exhale.

“Unless you want to spend the rest of your life protecting the secrets of people who would let you rot.”

_ Clank. Clack. Clank clack clank clack clack clack clack. _

Glynda was going to break the table just to reach Neo with her own hands, strangle some truth out of that recalcitrant throat, assuming she could speak at all. If not, she’d settle for just strangling her. Throwing down her pen onto the small accompanying notepad, she tipped back so far in her chair it could have only been her Semblance keeping her from toppling. 

Like a child spotting a new toy, Neo’s attention snapped up, locking onto the notepad and pen and reaching for it eagerly. 

Glynda watched her put the pen to paper from between fingers laid across her brow, a glimmer of hope sparking in her, all her limbs going stiff, freezing as though movement might stop the scrawl of pen across paper. 

Smiling pleasantly, Neo carried on until she was satisfied, looking up as though prepared to dangle whatever she’d inscribed, making Glynda dance for it. Glynda snorted, letting the front legs of her chair touch the ground and using her Semblance to snatch the notepad from those slender fingers. Neo was the only acrobat here - Glynda didn’t dance.

Unhappiness flashed in her eyes for the first time since they’d sat down together, but Glynda didn’t waste time analyzing the depths of her disappoint at being deprived of a chance to play. Instead, she read the words written in a neat, flowing hand: 

_ Shouldn’t you be questioning SOMEONE ELSE? _

The i’s were dotted with hearts, another, larger one encapsulating the capitalized words, leaving no ambiguity as to whom she referred. 

Glynda felt herself color slightly and looked up to see that Neo’s smirk had returned, her hands coming up to brush all of her hair over one shoulder and comb her bangs over one eye. She was the spitting image of Cinder, if only for the unrestrained satisfaction lighting up her face.

Smothering the response, Glynda said, “Cinder isn’t in custody.”

Neo quirked her brow, teeth flashing like she’d just be told some great secret.

Glynda cleared her throat, unsure of what she’d said to invoke such a look, and instantly returned to her words, scrutinizing each as though any might incriminate, condemn. Put beneath a microscope, she found too much familiarity in her address, quickly correcting herself: “Cinder Fall. Cinder Fall isn’t in custody.”

If Oz’s texts were anything to go by,  _ Cinder Fall _ hadn’t so much as moved from bed yet, lounging late into the afternoon even as he prepared them all a wonderful lunch - one which Glynda was missing by being here. 

As if privy to the thoughts racing through her head, Neo leaned across the table, reaching for the notepad with meek fingers. 

For a moment, Glynda didn’t relinquish it, wary as a prowling beast. There was cunning in those eyes and a cruel tilt to thin lips, every languid move screaming ill-intent. If it weren’t for the vain hope that she might divulge something useful so Glynda could leave, she might have locked gazes with her for eternity, her mouth tightening stubbornly. 

Slowly, she handed over the notepad and pen again, and Neo took them with no small delight. She started writing immediately, and when she was done, she turned it around without hesitation, the message reading: 

_ She’s talked about you. _

Glynda blinked very slowly. When she got home, she was going to throttle Cinder. 

From between grit teeth: “You don’t say.”

Neo let out a short breath, the corners of her eyes wrinkling as though she found something funny. Glynda stared for a moment before rolling her eyes and cradling her face in one hand. Right. She  _ didn’t _ say.

Glynda sighed. “What did she say?”

Bringing a hand to her mouth as if she were keeping some great secret, Neo set the notepad down. 

Glynda groaned. She would have thought an international criminal would have had a better concept of discretion, but Cinder was always finding new ways to disappoint. Well. At least she’d told the mute one and not Torchwick - Glynda doubted he’d have let a day pass without telling anyone who would listen.

From across the table, Neo removed her hand from her mouth and leaned forward in her seat, resting her chin on her palm. 

Squinting back at her, Glynda demanded, “ _ What _ .”

Neo shrugged, but the intensity of her gaze didn’t fade. 

Judgement. A criminal facing charges of treason, inciting treason, murder, attempted murder, and a slew of other charges was judging  _ her _ . Glynda was going to  _ kill _ Cinder.

“I don’t want to hear it.” Neo’s eyes crinkled again, and Glynda bit back a groan. “Aren’t you and Torchwick involved?”

Without pause, Neo turned to the side and pretended to dry heave. It lasted longer than Glynda expected, but unexpectedly, she found her head nodding in agreement. She would have had the same reaction if someone else had insinuated such a thing.

“Fair enough,” she conceded when Neo finally turned back. Then, after a moment: “I still don’t have to explain myself to you.”

The notepad was in Neo’s hands in a flash, a vague sense of dread rising suddenly to hang over Glynda like a dark cloud.

_ Explain Ozpin? _

“What?  _ Ozpin _ ?” Of all the things… “Why Ozpin?”

The corner of Neo’s mouth tugged upward, amused. 

Forty years of mistakes and blunders rushed through Glynda’s mind, everything from the dragon resting beneath the city of Vale to the insistence upon secrecy in dealing with the Maidens. Glynda adjusted her glasses, looking away. 

“He’s…” She gestured with one hand, tucking hair behind her ear with the other. “You know.”

Maybe she did know. There was no telling how much Cinder had said. 

“He does his best. And his heart is in the right place.” Glynda heaved a sigh. “His plans… Well, he makes a wonderful quiche.”

That elicited a positive response, Glynda taking note of the interest which sparked in Neo’s multicolored eyes. She leaned forward more as if urging Glynda to continue. 

Glynda sunk back into her seat. “Ozpin has his faults, as we all do. His just happen to be… More frequent. And catastrophic. But at least he tries - unlike  _ your boss _ . I’ve never met anyone else as unreasonable about showers. There’s never any hot water left.”

After a moment, she tacked on, “And the illegal activities.”

Not that Cinder had been getting up to much of that recently. Between long showers and longer naps, Glynda had to wonder how it was she got anything done even when she and Oz weren’t around to keep her from committing any crime more heinous than a thieved spot between them when they turned the television on. 

“I mean, sure, she’s a criminal, but she’s also really…” Glynda paused, searching for something good to say. “Hot.”

_ Totally _ redeeming. 

Glynda met Neo’s unfaltering gaze for a moment more before burying her face in her hands. From there, she mumbled, “Listen, I don’t need to explain myself to you.”

It was only the sound of writing which beckoned her rise from the coffin of her palms. 

On the other side of the table, Neo had leaned back in her seat, pen moving across the paper leisurely, lax and reclined as though there weren’t manacles slapped on her wrist, as though they weren’t sitting in an interrogation room. Her smile was easy, missing the sharp edges from the earlier ones, eyes half-lidded. 

When she met Glynda’s gaze again, she gave a flash of teeth and then turned the notepad around, presenting it as one might an award. 

In a hand so hard she was sure to have left impressions on the sheet beneath it, Neo had scrawled a message with none of the usual flair, neat letters abandoned for harsh angles. Circled countless times, the message read: 

**_BAD TASTES._ **

**Author's Note:**

> gg: "wow, fuckin rude"


End file.
